Dundarave Fish Market
Dundarave Fish Market is not just a fish market… it’s also a restaurant. We found ourselves in the neighbourhood late one day and decided to stop by for dinner. When the fish market is closed, they expand the restaurant by placing tables in front of the fish counter/display.
We weren’t sure what to order so we wound up getting a bunch of different dishes.
Panko Oysters ($12) – small and crispy fried oysters served atop slaw. The menu description said that it was served with a spiced horseradish sauce but it didn’t seem very spicy. The oysters were pretty good but much smaller than I was expecting.
Tug Boat Lettuce Wrap ($12) – warm albacore tuna chunks and crunchy tortilla crisps served with hoisin sauce. This dish actually came with a second sauce that tasted like a spicy horseradish sauce which I quite enjoyed (perhaps they confused the two dishes). They also serve another version of lettuce wrap for $15 with seared ahi tuna but the waitress said that filling was served cold.
The Fisherman’s Soup ($22) – an assortment of mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops, salmon and snapper served with a tomato leek broth. There were some really large and plump mussels which were nice.
Crackin’ Crab Cakes ($14) – two small crispy cakes served with organic greens, Thai aioli, and a peachy mango chutney. The menu description said it was also served with a broccoli coleslaw but I don’t remember seeing this on the plate. The crab cakes were excellent and had a perfectly crispy exterior with tasty crab filling. The chutney, however, was a bit too sweet for my liking and tasted more like a sweet and sour sauce.
Our waitress brought us some complimentary bread and butter when she brought us the Fisherman’s soup. The slices of bread were served cold but they were soft and worked for dipping in the tomato leek broth.
As we were sharing a bunch of appies, our waitress brought us each a cute little fish-shaped plate to use. The interior is quite dark at night (hence the bad camera flash pictures) and the patrons seem to be locals.
In truth, I was expecting the seafood to taste much better… it’s not that the food was bad but I expected much better seafood considering they’re a fish market.
One of the drawbacks of sitting near the fish counter is that another party came in after us and we were blocked in. It didn’t help that they brought their screaming kid along with them. As I mentioned, we were seated really close to the fish counter/display and our table neighbours decided to back up their chair right up to the display case leaving only a 4″ gap. This made it quite difficult for the waitress to serve our table and they made no attempt to move whenever she came by. If it wasn’t for the fact that our waitress was skinny and that she had to shimmy her way past the other table, we wouldn’t have gotten our orders at all. When we got up to leave and politely said “excuse me”, the other patron looked up, looked at the tiny space that they had left and had a “what? you can’t get by me” look on her face and then grudgingly move her chair 1/2 an inch. I suppose I can’t really blame the restaurant on the rude behaviour of their guests however they did sound like they had visited this restaurant before so they might be regulars.
2423 Marine Drive
West Vancouver, BC
Posted on November 5, 2012, in Restaurant Review, Seafood and tagged Crab Cakes, Deep Fried Oysters, Dundarave, Food, Lettuce Wrap, restaurant review, Seafood, West Vancouver. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Penny and Rusty's Food Blog 
Definitely surprised you went there. It has gone downhill big time since new owners took over and the head chef moved on. New owners apparently can’t stand others telling them how the restaurant works. Guess that’s what you get when you sell to someone who has only had two years in restaurant industry and it was only as a waitress. Too bad, it had potential to continue. They don’t even get nominated anymore for awards on the north shore. Sometimes, change is not always good.
Really wanted to like this place more but it wasn’t up to my expectations. While I probably wouldn’t come back again, it was really the other patrons that left me with a bad taste.